Set
by Summer Leigh Wind
Summary: Alecto had hoped differently, but with a wand just shy of her father's, she understood her fate laid elsewhere. One-Shot.


_**Set**_

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><p>Before you learn to fight, you ought to learn how to hide - especially if your opponent was twice your size; at least, that was what Alecto thought. Pushing her brother into one of the kitchen cabinets, she closed the door even as he began to speak.<p>

"What about y-"

"Sh!" She hissed as she let it hit the adjoining wood quite a bit louder than she should have.

Immediately, Alecto heard the pound of feet start back in their direction. Her heart constricting in a painful way that reminded her of the time when she was six and her father had grabbed her by the neck in one of his rages and nearly choked all her life out of her, Alecto prepared herself. Grabbing her dead mother's wand from her frock pocket, she pointed it toward the doorway.

Her father strode in, a terrible smirk twisting his already ugly features, she thought he might not be a wizard at all, but a demon. "What you got there, Alecto-dearie?" He sneered.

Jutting out her round chin, she yelled, "Leave right now or I'll curse you! Curse you with something _awful_!"

"Will you now?" The man chortled with malice. "Well, let's see it then, Alecto!" And he charged.

Heart pumping at the rapid-fire pace she's known rat's hearts to take when you lob off their tails, the girl screamed, "Crucio! _Crucio_!" Nothing came from the wand at all. Her father reached her, the tip of her dead mother's wand digging into his shoulder.

"Aw, didn't work, did it?" He tutted.

Eyes big and terribly scared, the girl could not say anything as she raised her tremulous blue eyes to meet his own glacial ones. "C-C-C-" she stammered, begging the wand beyond all hope to _do _what she wanted.

That, of course, did not work and only seemed to set her father off further.

"Stupid little squib bitch!" He howled. Eyes no more than a prick of blue amongst the red of his face, neck and hair, he backhanded her.

Tumbling to the ground, Alecto lost hold of the wand and with a grip of terrible fear that he might _break _it, she pushed herself up with her hands instead of pretending she'd been knocked out cold.

Having not thought she'd rise so fast, the girl managed to wrap her fingers around the criss-cross grooves of the wand's handle as her father's foot connected with her gut. "Ergh!" She gasped as she lost her breakfast all over her father's shoes.

"Bloody merlin!" He snarled.

Curling around her dead mother's wand, Alecto didn't quite expect her father to force her to her feet by yanking her up by her ponytail. Incapable of stopping herself, the girl screamed as she thought she might lose her scalp.

"Stop hurting her!" A boy's voice cried as her brother came clattering out of the cupboard to tackle their father.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" The man shouted as he swatted away his son, causing Amycus to go careening across the room thanks to his small size and her father's brutish strength.

He might have gone to lay into her brother if Alecto hadn't gotten his attention for a second time by shrieking the _one _spell she wanted to work most for a third time. "_Crucio_!" she shrilled, but it didn't work, which meant that whole "third time's the charm" saying was a bunch of rot. Now her father was even _less _pleased by her interruption than he was by her failed attempt to muster even a spark from a dead woman's wand.

"Bitch!" He growled, turning to her. Hitting her again and again, her father did not stop until she crumpled to the ground and could do no more than scream for him to _"stop father, stop!"_

He didn't, but she knew wouldn't. He never did, not until she was bleeding enough for it to start staining the floor.

Eventually, his fist connected with her nose and her blood began to drip. Covering her nose briefly, she tried to stem it as his hands continued to rain down her shoulders and head. Eventually, she held out a bloody hand in defense and yelled, "I'm sorry! I'm _sorry!"_

Eye on the red marring her pallid hand, her father spat on her and declared, "Damn well better be!"

Grabbing at her then, he lifted her to her feet and snatched the wand she'd been protecting right out her hand. Eyes so very cruel, he smiled at her and brought his dead wife's wand to his knee - snapping it in two.

Hands limp at her side, Alecto said nothing and made no noise when her father laughed at her. "Stupid squib," he said, "You don't need a damn wand!"

Leaving the room then, the girl's only comfort came when Amycus made his way over and touched her shoulder.

"I'm sorry he broke your wand," her brother whispered.

Staring at the sympathy glowing in the boy's tiny eyes, Alecto felt the need to avert her stare. "Don't be, it wasn't mine anyway," she replied.

His eyebrows went into his hairline, and Alecto could have rolled her eyes at him for how _stupid _he was. But really, he wasn't any more idiotic than her, _she'd _let their father know the wand was important.

"Who's-" he started.

"Our mother's," she answered before he could even finish.

His eyes shuttered. "Oh," Amycus muttered with little else to say.

It's not like he recalled her any. He'd been only a few days old when their mother succumbed to some after-birth malady. Alecto, though, had almost been four and with a pitbull like hold, clung to what little she remembered about the woman. How she smelled a bit like wilting lilacs. The way her mouth curved in a frown when Alecto's father came home. How _every _night her mother tucked her in to bed and said "I love you; I don't care if you don't end up being a witch, I don't care if you don't end up being bright or beautiful, I love you because you are _my _daughter."

She'd known she'd been loved and Alecto would remember that to the end of her days.

Scrubbing at her nose, the girl turned to her brother and said, "Come along, Amycus, it's high time we get started on our studies."

"Yes, sister," he agreed taking her hand with his own.

Together, sister and brother headed for the very library where Alecto had read about that curse - _crucio; _she'd have to read up on it again and see why she hadn't been able to do it, because she _refused _to believe she was the squib her father always accused her of being.

xXx

A year later, when her Hogwarts school letter came, she'd taken it to her father. He'd read it once and apologized for the first time and only time in his life to her, "My apologies, I judged your capabilities too quickly, Alecto-dearie."

Lip stiff and eyes just as icy, she accepted what was offered, "It is forgiven."

Musingly, he'd turned to the window, "I guess we will have to get you a wand."

And together, a weekend later, they visited Moribund's who had her test eight wands before she came upon her last. A nine inch poplar wand with a core of dragon heartstring. Her father had almost been proud at this.

"My wand's a nine inch poplar with troll whisker," he told her.

Alecto attempted to show some joy at this because it was very obvious to her that father was very pleased they were so similar, but Alecto couldn't help but remember her mother's beautiful Ivy wand. It seemed she had no hope of being one bit like her.

Maybe it was time she forgot her mother. Maybe it was time Alecto started stepping up to the plate and make her father _really _proud.

She could do that, certainly? So, with a very slight smile, she remarked, "Isn't that good? Surely someday I'll be as fine a witch as you are a wizard."

"Let's not get ahead of yourself, _dearie,_" he scolded with a light tone, but his fingers dug sharp into the bruises on her shoulder.

Deflating, Alecto knew she'd never be anything but a stupid bitch to her father. "Yes father," she replied.

Leaving the shop, she thought of the wand in the box tucked against her side and wondered how long she had until she was cruel as her father, with a wand like his, it undoubtedly wouldn't be too long.

Maybe there could be hope for Amycus...No, he was already too lost. He _enjoyed _capturing the rats living in their home and vivisecting them on the kitchen table. He thought it was _fun, _just like Alecto thought it was fun to imagine using all the little hexes she read in her family's books on those dumb muggles her father was always raving about.

Already, they were both too much like their father and not enough like their mother.

(Someday, someone would say they'd become _too much _like their father).

Alecto wasn't sure if she should cry for her fate or rage for it, but no matter how she looked at it, she knew she wasn't going to escape it. She didn't have the cleverness to do it. So, really, her best course of action was to take what was going to be hers anyways and be the _best _at it. Alecto would be more than cruel, she would be downright _sadisitic. _

And that wasn't a dream - like her hope to become a woman like her mother - it was a _promise, _the same as the glint in her her father's squinty blue eyes before he walloped her one with a fist to the face.

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><p><strong>I can't say I'm overly happy with this fic. I did want to explore what could make a character so cruel, though, and this seemed as plausible a reason as any.<strong>

**Thank you for reading and please review.**


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